Rapacious Avarice
by MegaKiraraLover
Summary: "No one in Devil's Nest had any idea exactly when the strange traveler from the East first appeared," but…what secrets lie behind his squinted eyes and the gloves he never takes off? TIMETRAVEL, manga-based, greed-/chimera-POV
1. Chapter 1

Rapacious Avarice

Summary: "No one in Devil's Nest had any idea exactly when the strange traveler from the East first appeared." But this strange traveler is going to do more than just spice up the bar, for as the plot unfolds, it turns out that the mysterious Xingese teen seems to know more than he should and do things he shouldn't…what secrets lie behind his squinted eyes and the gloves he never takes off? TIME TRAVEL, manga-based, 2003anime references, hinted/friends-with-benefits Greed/Ling/Greedling

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and all related properties belong to various Japanese companies and people I don't know the name of. Or else I wouldn't be writing here and Greed/Greedling would still be alive in the end of the 2003anime/manga, respectively. D,:

**Chapter One**

No one in Devil's Nest had any idea exactly when the strange traveler from the East first appeared. He could have been coming into the bar for weeks before anyone took notice; Devil's Nest had become insanely popular in the span of a simple year (likely because of the prostitutes and good liquor that frequented there). However, there was no doubt what day the traveler first became truly obvious to the owner of Devil's Nest and his humble(ish) workers.

It was more crowded than usual that night. Near the back of the room the Xingese man sat, nursing a single glass of a very light-weight liquor. Later the group would find out that this was the traveler's normal order, and he would stay nearly the whole night drinking that one glass and only rarely getting more. Anyway, so one of the regular customers was becoming particularly handsy with Martel even though she was clearly off-limits.

"C'mon, baaaaabe," slurred the drunkard, reaching out and grabbing Martel's waist as she was passing by. Surprised, Martel put up almost no resistance other than a surprised sound before glaring furiously at the customer. He either didn't notice or didn't care as his nearly illegible rambling continued. "Yer sucha stiff. Whydon'cha take tha night off'ya cutie? I'd show ya'a grand ol' time…"

"No," Martel said simply, moving to slip out of the man's grip. Her efforts were in vain for the time; the man merely scowled at her, red-faced, and stood up to tower over her with his bulky 6'6" frame while tightening his grip.

"Why not? Bangin'someone else?"

Martel turned red herself, looking steadily more pissed. "That is none of your business. Now let me go before I break your fingers."

The large drunk let out a booming laugh that made those nearby flinch, although the Xingese merely sipped at his alcohol silently from the booth behind him.

"Yer feisty, li'l cutie," he said in a failed attempt at being seductive. "I like that."

"Sick bastard," muttered Martel, glancing around subtly for any of the men in their group. She wasn't weak by any means (sparring with Dorochet freehanded and subsequently kicking his ass was one of her favorite pastimes), but the whole point of being in Dublith was to keep a low profile so that any soldiers looking out for their missing chimeras wouldn't catch wind of strangely fighting-oriented and flexible(Martel)/quick(Dorochet)/strong(Roa)/weird(Bido) people living together. Naturally, this caused a bit of a problem for Martel in situations such as this, when their "bouncer" Roa and the owner were both unavailable for the moment.

The man's expression twisted into one of drunken rage. "Wha'd'ya call me?"

Martel was unimpressed. "You heard me. Or are you stupider than you look?"

The rage became more pronounced and a fist went flying towards Martel's face. The snake chimera prepared to duck at the last minute—

"Whoops!" the Xingese man suddenly cried as he collided into the drunken man with his empty glass in hand. The drunkard was too unprepared and inebriated to keep his balance and crashed sideways, grip dropping from Martel as he landed heavily on the ground. The glass the Easterner had been holding "slipped" from his grip and smashed into the customer's face, shattering and imbedding small fragments throughout.

A scream pierced the bar as the drunken customer clawed at his face and unintentionally pushed the shards in further. Blood began to drip between his fingers and down his chin as Martel and the rest of the bar looked on with wide, shocked eyes.

"Sorry about that." The Easterner was standing next to Martel, rubbing the back of his head, slanted eyes appearing closed in embarrassment as he hovered near to the now-crying would-be assailant. "Guess I slipped. Here, let me help you up!"

Obviously-false grin in place, the man from the East easily raised the substantial weight of his still-sobbing victim and half dragged him towards the door while the rest of the bar looked on. A kick to open the wooden door (startling two people making out against the building), then a shove and a slam, and the unruly patron was out of the bar. Hopefully for good.

The young man turned around to find conversations hastily resumed as he walked back toward the unmoving Martel.

"You okay?" he asked, opening his eyes and stunning Martel with the purplish-grey color they were. If the pupils were slit and the grey was more of a soft red, she could almost believe this stranger had the same eyes as her "employer."

"I'm fine," she finally said, shaking herself out of her stupor. The Xingese grinned largely and squinted his eyes again while gesturing wildly with black-gloved hands.

"Good! I was kinda worried there for a minute that guy was going to do something stupid. Lucky I'm so clumsy, eh?"

He laughed at himself and Martel took that moment to look over her supposed savior. He was in his late teens, perhaps, and distinctly not from the country; with slanted eyes, deeply tanned skin, and much smoother hair than was normally found in Amestris combining with his noticeably thinner-than-average body structure, he could only be from the Eastern country of Xing. He was dressed semi-casually yet completely in black, with a long-sleeved trench coat over a thin skin-tight turtleneck and loose black cloth pants falling over boots that were once probably rather pricy, but now looked well-used and thoroughly scuffed.

"Where are my manners?" the teenager suddenly interrupted his own laughter, smiling widely at Martel as he stuck out a hand. "My name is Ling Greefan. And you?"

"Um," Martel began with a blink before cautiously taking the hand offered, "Martel."

The teenager grinned, and behind half-closed eyelids, grey turned to red and sparked with the essence of Greed…

_Episode One__  
Regular Easterner_

Ling Greefan soon after became well known around Devil's Nest by all who visited and/or worked in the front of the bar, with the notable exception of Greed, who oddly was never present when Ling was and visa-versa. But the dodging, intentional on Ling's part or not, was ended one day when Ling appeared at an oddly early time on the front stoop of Devil's Nest, seemingly unconscious and moaning something about being hungry.

An hour after Dorochet made the human discovery, everyone in Devil's Nest was watching with wide eyes as Ling finished his tenth helping of Roa's freshly-made (and now completely gone) meat-and-soup lunch. The Xingese teen let out a sigh of contentment and patted his stomach, chewing on a toothpick and grinning innocently at the dazed chef.

"That was great," he chirped happily, "thanks for the meal. You guys saved my life!"

"Who said that was free?" Dorochet asked with a scowl as he crossed his arms, looking ticked. "You just ate all our food!"

Ling laughed and casually flipped his hand about. "Details, details! Let's not worry about the small stuff, eh?"

"Why were you on out front anyway?" Martel asked from her spot leaning against the wall by the doorway, eyeing Ling with more amusement than the horror/shock/anger from the others in the room. "Normally you don't show up until about an hour into the service."

A blink of surprise caused Ling to open his eyes more than normal before they fell back into their squinted position, a gloved finger tapping his chin. "Huh. Didn't realize I was that obvious," he said in a playful tone of voice that hid some other emotion behind it. There was a pause before he shrugged and grinned again, leaning back in his chair casually. "Actually, I, ah…I kinda ran out of money recently."

Martel and Dorochet face-faulted while Roa sweatdropped, as did the secret observers behind the doorway leading to the back rooms of the bar.

"Ran out of money! ?" echoed Dorochet after he recovered, staring incredulously at Ling. "But you were in here last night buying your normal drink!"

"About that," Ling began, raising a finger with a casual air. The others stared expectantly at him. "That…was sort of my last ten senz."

Sweatdrops/face-faults reoccurred among the room at large.

"Don't you have a job?" Martel asked when she recovered. Ling shook his head with a long, put-upon sigh and shrug.

"Not many people around here are willing to offer a job to a foreigner," he admitted with the faintest bitterness. "Maybe if I was in Central, I could get one, but in a town like Dublith with the Great Desert and Ishval camps so close, everyone's weary of those who're different."

"That seems to always be the case," Roa uttered somberly.

A moment of silence passed.

"You should come meet our boss," Martel suddenly said, making two gazes snap incredulously in her direction and one curiously.

"You mean the owner of Devil's Nest?" queried Ling with obvious intrigue and innocence.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Dorochet hedged, staring pointedly at Martel. The seemingly-oblivious Ling tilted his head.

"Why? I get along with a lot of people…unless he's a monster or something."

Ling snickered at his own joke as the others in the room exchanged worried glances. The Xingese clearly noted this when his laughter abruptly cut off.

"If nothing else, he'll want to thank you for stopping that mess a while ago," Martel said and effectively broke the light tension in the room. "And maybe he could even give you a job here."

"Really?" Ling asked, leaning forward curiously. His squinted eyes opened a bit more than usual to reveal the dark irises to the room as he seemed to change the topic. "What's your boss like?"

There was a long pause as the chimeras looked at each other for information.

"He's…interesting," Dorochet began slowly. "A good boss; gave us jobs and helps us out of trouble,"

"Intimidating, but only if you cross him," Roa cut in,

"And he's rather…ah…" Martel continued,

"Greedy," the trio finished together with a mix of amusement and exasperation. Ling blinked before squinting his eyes again and smiling widely.

"Sounds like we'd get along just fine," he announced, standing and stretching his arms out. His shirt pulled up and only Roa noticed the dark scar trailing to Ling's right hip in a slashing pattern, making the ox chimera wonder with amazement what exactly their acquaintance had fought in the past to get such a nasty wound.

"So," Ling went on, snapping Roa from his thoughts as the scar disappeared under Ling's shirt, "where is your boss? When can I meet him?"

"How 'bout now?" a voice called from the entry that was now barren of less humanoid chimeras and instead held their employer, sunglasses in place and smirk twisting his lips. The chimera trio quickly ducked out of the way as the man pushed off from the doorframe and sauntered over to stand before the now-indecipherable Ling, sticking out a tattooed hand in greeting. "The name's Greed. And I hear I owe ya a 'thanks,' kid."

After a moment of simply staring at the homunculus with an unreadable expression, the teenager carefully took the offered hand as though expecting Greed to lash out as soon as he came too close. "Ling Greefan."

Greed blinked curiously before taking back his hand, sticking both on his hips and leaning forward to inspect Ling with his purple-red eyes over the top of his sunglasses. "'Ling,' eh? Sounds kinda foreign."

A grin split Ling's face. "'Greed' is not exactly a normal name either," he chirped brightly. There was a brief, tense pause before Ling effortlessly broke it. "My family's from Xing and 'Ling' is a traditional name for first-born sons. Or 'Lin' if the first-born is female."

None of those in the room could hear any difference between the two names, but they didn't bring attention to that fact; Greed merely made a little, "huh," sound of curiosity and nodded as if everything in the world suddenly made sense.

"So back to the whole 'owing ya' thing," Greed said, bringing the conversation back to where he wanted it. Ling tilted his head to one side in curiosity during the following pause. "I may have overheard Martel mentioning giving you a job around here. And I may have some openings available…assuming you're up to doing, ah, 'alternative' styles of work."

Ling was silent for a moment. His head tilted the other way, thoughtful frown in place. The chimeras in the room slowly began to tense in preparation. Only Greed remained as visibly relaxed as their thoughtful guest, simply waiting for a response.

A sudden smile slipped onto Ling's face and he gently pounded one fist into his open palm, the sound of leather hitting leather echoing softly. "Oh, you mean like illegal stuff!" he announced cheerfully. Dorochet stared at Ling like he was stupid, Martel smacked her forehead in exasperation, Roa sweatdropped, and Greed seemed entertained as he shrugged.

"I'm not saying that," he smoothly corrected, smirk in place. Ling nodded a few times, seemingly ignoring his potential employer's words.

"Right, right, of course. It's like a secret gang or something you've got going on here. Sure explains a lot of things I've noticed."

"Such as?"

Ling merely smiled wordlessly for a few seconds before returning to the topic of the potential job. "It sounds like fun," he chirped, cracking his eyes open to reveal his smoky-violet eyes sparkling with mischief and perhaps something a bit darker. "I'm in."

Greed gave a leering, sharp-tooth grin. "You sure? You don't even know all the details, Squinty."

Eyes snapped closed abruptly at the nickname, but Ling continued to smile (although as it twitched a little). "Yes, well. I think I can figure most of them out."

"Oh?" uttered Greed curiously, crossing his arms over his chest and quirking a brow with not necessarily disbelief, but likely an emotion close to it (it was hard to tell behind his sunglasses).

"Mmmm," Ling hummed quietly, stuffing his gloved hands in the pockets of his loose pants. "It isn't that hard if you know what you're looking for."

A silence once more fell as Greed carefully eyed his potential new employee, the chimera trio in the back feeling the hairs on their bodies rise in response to the building tension. It seemed thickest between the black-clothed duo before them.

"Alright then," Greed simply said and the pressure suddenly dissipated as if it was only in the minds of the observers all along. "We can start with figuring out what you'd be best at and work from there."

Ling's serene but roguish smile was his only response.

**-END-**

MKL's Post-Production Notes (3-5-12): This story is an experiment. I'm only going to continue it if I recieve a decent response from you, the readers. Which isn't to say I'm blackmailing reviews (that's just wrong), but simply that I'm working on two other stories on my own plus one colaboration fiction at the same time I'm writing this story so if I don't get enough interest, I'm going to focus on those for now. If I don't get a lot of interest, then I'll just work on it when I'm done with one or two of the other stories I've got...likely in a few months. :) So review if you want to see it continued...or don't. Either way is fine with me. ^.^


	2. Chapter 2

Rapacious Avarice

Summary: "No one in Devil's Nest had any idea exactly when the strange traveler from the East first appeared." But this strange traveler is going to do more than just spice up the bar, for as the plot unfolds, it turns out that the mysterious Xingese teen seems to know more than he should and do things he shouldn't…what secrets lie behind his squinted eyes and the gloves he never takes off? TIME TRAVEL, manga-based, 2003anime references, hinted/friends-with-benefits Greed/Ling/Greedling

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist and all related properties belong to various Japanese companies and people I don't know the name of. Or else I wouldn't be writing here and Greed/Greedling would still be alive in the end of the 2003anime/manga, respectively. D,:

**Chapter Two**

Greed found himself unendingly curious when it came to the young Xingese he had just moments ago employed, and for many reasons. One was simply the passing curiosity he had for an oddity which, despite his truthful words of Dublith being on the edge of the desert, Ling as a traveler from Xing certainly was. Another was how casual he was with Greed's workers despite only two weeks or so of passing interaction, especially since Greed had heard about the 'Dragon's Pulse' that was known in the East for reading auras.

But the reason that struck him as most interesting was the air of easy power and knowledge that Ling effortlessly exuded and without any obvious awareness of it. Greed wanted—no, _needed_—that power, whether it be his physically or by proxy by making Ling one of his possessions.

"Let's start simple," Greed said after the two had been made comfortable in his own office, Greed with a glass of hard whisky and Ling preferring some fruity drink that was only saved because he demanded Everclear mixed in instead of the normal light shit Greed was embarrassed to even stock in his bar. "What'cha doin' over here instead of back in Xing, Squinty? Not many move over to Amestris at all, let alone durin' the summer."

"My _name_ is Ling, Mr. Greed," the Xingese said with a twitch of his eyebrow, smile still in place none the less; Greed shrugged, not really caring, and Ling sighed under his breath. He went on cheerfully despite his obvious annoyance with the nickname. "As you may know, there's quite a bit of political intrigue going on back in Xing. The Emperor is dying and he is looking to find a successor to the throne in one of his many children. It's resulted in quite a few miniature wars and such that many of us would prefer not to get involved with. So I figured, why not come to Amestris? Just a few weeks across the desert and no more worrying about it."

Greed jerked slightly in his slumped position. "Emperor Dao is sick?"

Ling's eyebrows rose in surprise but Greed's mind was racing. He'd met the old coot once, about sixty years ago, when the then-kid was visiting with _his_ father and then-Emperor—only in passing, but it was enough to be able to know he had earned a somewhat strong connection to the Emperor of Xing himself. Power he'd greatly appreciated at the time but as the years went by, gradually forgot even existed. Turns out having connection to a rival country that's across a huge desert, no matter what the connection is, wasn't as useful as it should have been.

"He's expected to die in the next four years," Ling said after a long pause. For someone from a country known to adore its Emperor above all else, the kid was surprisingly nonchalant about the thought. "I plan to stay in Amestris at least until that happens."

Greed took a long drink and nodded. "Right," was all he said, recovering from the shock quickly. He'd come to accept over the years that humans died and he just had to deal with it. "So, you really want this position with us."

Ling shrugged with a slightly bitter smile. "It is not like I have many choices. Like I told your compatriots, there's not a high demand for foreigners in any market these days."

"Guess you didn't take that into account when you traveled here, eh?"

The jab was ignored, to Greed's joy and annoyance. Ling just gave an extraordinarily bland smile.

"What do you think you could do?" Greed asked casually, putting on an expression that made it seem like he honestly doubted Ling had anything to contribute. He sure as hell wasn't going to tell the Xingese that he already was guaranteed the job.

"What do you need?" countered Ling with a wider, mischievous smile. "I could do a lot of things, depending."

The obvious deflection had Greed narrowing his eyes behind his sunglasses but he stayed silent on his annoyance, instead deciding to play along…for now. "Any good at fighting?"

"Need a bouncer?" Ling smirked, obviously knowing that wasn't why Greed was asking. "I like to think so, especially if you can find me a _dan dao_ or a blade similar to it."

If this had been said to almost anyone else native to Amestris, they would have no idea what Ling was speaking about. Greed, on the other hand, had been around long enough to know it was a curved single-edged machete-like sword Xing ninja favored. "Those things are expensive around here," Greed said absently, taking another drink. "We'll see how you do with a normal sword before I invest in something like that, Squinty."

Either Ling was ignoring him or was already used to the nickname, since he moved on without drawing attention to his latent annoyance. "I'm good at information gathering. Obviously the more public forms of it would be useless around here, but I have talent at staying in the shadows. The Xingese ability _Lung Mei_ helps of course."

"That's the thing that lets you sense auras and shit, right?" Ling simply nodded and Greed narrowed his eyes. "And how accurate is it?"

Ling's perpetual smile morphed into a smirk as his eyes opened, glittering faintly with malice. "Enough to know what you and your friends are, Mr. **Greed**." There was a subtle stressing of the name but Greed made no motion to show he noticed (and he _noticed_); he knew better than to confirm any suspicions, unlike some of his siblings coughenvycoughgluttonycough. Ling's smirk turned back into a grin and he visibly relaxed, eyes squinting again. "Of course it doesn't matter to me at all! Hahaha…"

Greed felt like he had passed some test and that pissed him off. _He_ was the one testing here, dammit! "You still have a hotel booked?" he interrupted. Ling stopped laughing and agreed. "Go cut off your time. If you're workin' for me, you're livin' here so I can keep an eye on you." He smiled. He and surely Ling knew it was nowhere near a kind smile. "I take care of what's mine."

"So I'm yours now?" was Ling's mischievous response. Greed rolled his eyes and gestured for Ling to leave the room which the new employee did after only a pause to wave goodbye and give him a final smile.

The Homunculus stared into his glass, at first simply pondering, but with a smirk gradually growing on his lips. It seemed that once again he made a good choice in his possessions. Now to make sure the others knew and didn't gut little Ling as soon as he next walked in…

_Episode Two  
__Devil's Initiation__  
_

Dorochet seemed to be excited to have a new sparring partner, Greed noted when the next morning after a good night's rest and some decent food he declared Ling fit to be tested on his swordsmanship. He especially wanted to see how Ling worked when things weren't as planned, pulling Dorochet aside and lowly telling the dog-chimera to give their newbie the single off-weight _bokken_ training-sword in the area. So far it was looking to be interesting…if nothing else Ling was clearly aware that his weapon was skewed, given his scowl at it as he gave a few practice swings.

"Putting me on a handicap already?" he said, eyes minutely more open than usual and showing off their odd coloring. The only thing that prevented Greed from assuming this foreigner was a homunculus was that he couldn't feel the same connection he felt when meeting his other "siblings". He didn't deny that there was a faint connection of _some_ kind, but he put that down to his curiosity and desire to own Ling rather than the kid being non-human.

None of that changed the fact that the grey-purple color was unnerving, of course. Martel had told him quietly it was like looking into the eyes of a well-fed tiger—lazy, almost playful until it became…irritated.

"Stop complaining and fight me," said Dorochet, yawning. Greed had woken him up from a nap to do this and he wanted to finish it off quickly. "Unless you're all talk."

"Oh, no," Ling said with a bright smile, eyes squinted even more than usual (no one there knew that was even possible), "just excited to see how _you_ do. I haven't had a good sparring partner in a while, hahaha!"

Dorochet rolled his eyes and the two gave a customary bow before taking their respective stances. Dorochet's was tight, a product of meticulous training under his previous teacher and continued practicing of katas after the Ishval Uprising started; Ling's, on the other hand, was loose and almost casual, yet his barely-visible eyes were sharp and his muscles just tense enough to be ready to spring when needed.

The two didn't move for a long moment, simply staring at the other.

Then Ling lunged.

Greed had heard in the past that a fight between two good swordsmen was similar to dancing through a waltz, but _this_ fight was an absolutely frantic and foreign fast-paced sort of…thing. There was once, in Greed's long lifetime, a brief stint in music where some beats played so quickly it hammered on the eardrums, turning into one almost continual hum of noise overrun with fast-paced guitars and blaring horns and crashing cymbals. That was the sort of music Ling and Dorochet were "dancing" to, barely blurs to the normal eye.

In minutes that felt like moments to the onlookers and hours to the combatants, everything suddenly stopped. Standing about where they began were a heavily panting Dorochet and a slightly-less-winded Ling…each with a _bokken_ at the other's throat.

There was silence in the room and tension was high.

Then Dorochet gave a wide, giddy grin and barked a loud laugh.

"You're good, man!" he shouted, dropping his _bokken_ to his side. A large bruise was blossoming on his left cheek and there were two similar ones on his dominant right arm, but his eyes were glittering with excitement and his tail had showed up just to wag so quickly it was a blur.

"You're not bad yourself, Dorochet!" chirped Ling with a grin of his own—thankfully not seeming to notice Dorochet's slip into his slightly more canine "chimera form" as the inhabitants of Devil's Nest called it. The Xing man, too, dropped his weapon to the side, stretching out; while he had no visible injuries like Dorochet did, he was still obviously winded by the battle. "Ah, that was refreshing! I haven't had such a challenge in so long~"

"Me, either, man!" It seemed Dorochet realized his tail had popped out about then and his grin flickered for a moment before coming back strong when the tail disappeared into…wherever it went when he was disguised as a regular human. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?!"

"An old friend," said Ling almost wistfully. He seemed lost in some sort of memories for a moment before snapping back to reality with a smirk as he turned to Greed. His eyes sparkled with mischievous amusement. "So…did I pass the test, Mr. Greed?"

Not even bothering to deny that this was a test of the foreigner's claims, Greed smirked and clapped. "With flying colors, Squinty," he purred. As was becoming the norm, Ling twitched just slightly at the nickname, but this time his expression didn't falter.

"Good!"

There was a pause.

"…does that mean you'll get me my _dan dao_ now?"

"You're relentless, kid!" Greed said, slightly incredulous. He soon after wandered over to smack Ling on the back with a laugh. "I like that!"

Everyone either sweatdropped or deadpanned, Ling included in the latter. "I'll…keep that in mind," he said slowly. Greed just gave an unrepentant grin before moving on.

"So, kid, ready for the next test?"

It was a sign of competency that Ling looked uneasy about that question…

_-__Devil's Initiation-_

Three hours later, Ling returned from his "next test". He looked clearly tired, slightly pissed, and more than a little on-edge…but judging by the notepad in his hand with scrawled Xingese symbols covering the visible page, he was successful. Hopefully.

"What's the report?" drawled Greed as he lounged on his rather expensive—yet comfy—leather couch in the middle of the Devil's Nest, the only thing other than booths and the bar itself to sit at and the one thing that was off-limits to anyone _other_ than Greed…and/or those he happened to invite there. Ling obviously either didn't get the memo or simply didn't care, since he dropped down on the arm farther from Greed with a long sigh.

"Well," said the Easterner slowly, flipping through the three full pages of notes on his notebook, "there wasn't much. A lot of military going in-and-out, which you probably could have figured out on your own. About three people who tried unsuccessfully to sneak in, and five that succeeded—four of those came out just fine, but one was dragged outside wearing handcuffs, screaming about stealing his girlfriend or something.

"There was one group of people who discussed the merits of the female uniforms having a required skirt," he continued, now becoming slightly more cross, "and another that spoke about the Fuhrer," the word was sneered, making Greed's eyebrows shoot up, "and his tendency to not show up for meetings…_yáng gu__ǐ__zi_…"*

Greed choked back laughter at the Xingese slur, but said nothing. Ling quickly continued. "One person tripped two different times on two different stairs. Fifteen people picked their noses; of those, seven were called out. Twenty-three women in particular were catcalled at…as were six men. Two people had toilet paper stuck to their shoe when they walked past. Oh, and one person was plotting the assassination of Lieutenant Roy Mustang for climbing the ranks too quickly; I took the liberty of silencing him.

"Now." Ling closed his notebook with a snap and opened his eyes to glare at Greed, clearly peeved and ignoring the shocked expressions of the others at his final statement that silenced the snickering that had otherwise gone on. "_Why the hell did you have me monitoring the military-only outhouses!?_"

Laughter returned at the question, although it was noticeably more subdued than it would have been without Ling's final statement. Greed put on a face of innocent surprise that was _very_ obviously fake, to everyone's amusement but Ling's.

"You get some of the best gossip from rest rooms and outhouses, Squinty," said Greed with a smirk when it was obvious no one bought his "innocence". "Not many people think there's gunna be a spy in the can while they're takin' a shit."

"That's true," agreed Ling reluctantly, hunched over and moping in his little area of DOOM and DESPAIR, complete with rainclouds and mushrooms growing off his head, "but I still don't have to like it…"

"The better question here," continued Greed as if Ling hadn't spoken, his eyes now narrowing dangerously behind his sunglasses, "is why you _killed_ someone _from the military, WITHOUT CONSULTING ME FIRST_."

Ling straightened from his nest of DESPAIR and opened his eyes, their smoky purple orbs sharp and somehow just as dangerous as Greed's crimson-washed violet. It seemed as if the tiger was starting to become annoyed, judging by the stare-down between the foreigner and the homunculus that had tension skyrocketing without any more effort.

After a long, drawn-out minute, Ling finally said with steel behind his words, "If you're worried about it being traced back to here, don't be. I took care of it. Why I did it…well. Roy Mustang helped me out not too long ago. I owed him, and I _hate_ owing people things…so I decided to do this; my debt is now clear."

Greed continued to glare, asking in a low tone, "And do you have any more of these '_debts_' I should be aware of?"

Ling was quiet, simply staring at Greed, before matter-of-factly: "_No_."

(Not too much later, it became obvious that this statement was a huge lie…though by and far, it was not the biggest Ling would have told.)

**-END-**

*yáng guǐzi (Chinese: 洋鬼子): "Foreign devil", a slur for white people. In this fiction, the Xingese use this term for particularly distasteful Amestrisians. Please note that any Xingese will likely be actual Chinese/Japanese/Mandarin/whatever in this fic and any mistranslations should be put down to...well, fictional universe and fictional language. No offense is meant, either.

MKL's Post-Production Notes (7-8-13): Well, gee, this certainly took long enough to post, eh? -awkward grin- Ahahaha...

Truth be told, I was stuck for about six months on what to do during/after the fight with Dorochet and Ling and lost interest in this fic...then I started to re-read "Just One of Those Days" and was struck with ideas galore. ...that sounds bad. Um, let me say now that I didn't copy anything, but I did get an idea of things to do when I didn't agree with what the author did or had an idea for a plotpoint s/he didn't put in. So yeah! Plotbunny ahoy! On that note, check out that story if you haven't...it's an OC-centric fic based around and only slightly changing the main plotline (so far), but a _well-written_ one, which we all know is SUPER rare on here! Seriously, you'd all enjoy it. :)


End file.
